I warned you they would do this:
Leave a comment[Bedell's] view of the government appears well out on the extreme—until you see what some people close to the center of power are saying these days.
“America is teetering towards tyranny,” Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina told the Conservative Political Action Conference last month. He accused the governing Democrats of peddling socialist policies “that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world.”
Print This Post
That’s the message in my latest post at Big Government:
No tragedy is beyond exploitation by the left. When census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead and it was leaked that “Fed” was scrawled across his chest, the entirety of the conservative and Tea Party movements were immediately convicted by the online left. They were wrong, and we now know that Sparkman committed suicide. Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the left also tried to hang Joseph Stack around the neck of the Tea Party. Again they failed.
They are now
doing the same song and dance with Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell. Despite the fact that he’s a registered Democrat and 9/11 Truther, the left and their media sycophants are stretching to tie him to the Tea Party movement, though the best that they can honestly come up with is that he distrusted government.
That’s what it really boils down to. At the end of the day, they know none of these guys will hold up as right-wingers. Their real objective is simply to shame anyone who thinks government should be smaller, rather than bigger. Anyone who thinks that the IRS is often used to bully Americans isn’t simply wrong, you see, but is also dangerous. Anyone who thinks that a limited government would better promote prosperity and ensure individual liberty isn’t merely antiquated, but also a potential shooter of government employees.
…
Read the whole thing.
Leave a comment Print This Post
Writing in the Wall Street Journal today, Congressmen Mike Pence and Jeb Hensarling lay out how we can wrangle government and get it under control:
Fiscal storm clouds are upon us. In five years, federal spending has skyrocketed to 24.7% from 19.9% of our economy. That’s the highest level since World War II. Borrowing has ballooned the national debt to $11.9 trillion from $7.3 trillion, a five-year increase equal to the accumulation of debt between President George Washington and President Bill Clinton.
Unfortunately, the long-term fiscal picture is worse. As the Baby Boom generation retires and the cost of health care continues to escalate, entitlement programs will cause federal spending to rise to 40% of our economy, double its post-World War II average. This is assuming that spending does not increase even further, an assumption that the trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill and the 84% increase in nondefense discretionary spending President Obama signed into law argues against.
Their proposal:
Winston Churchill once said that “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” We’ve exhausted the possibilities. Now it’s time to do the right thing.
That is why we are proposing a Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment would limit spending to one-fifth of the economy (our historical spending average since World War II). The limit could only be waived by a declaration of war or by a two-thirds congressional vote.
As with other constitutional amendments, Congress would be given the authority to enforce and implement it. But for the first time, the federal government would have a limit on its size and scope. The Spending Limit Amendment does not promise a particular spending plan about what programs to restrain and by how much. Rather, it puts a legal constraint on lawmakers present and future.
As ideas go this is a pretty good one. Constitutional amendments are very difficult to pass, though. Can the Tea Party movement rally around this idea and make November a referendum on it? It’s possible, but I’m not sure how that could be enough.
Republicans would have to run the table just to get a Senate majority. It’s not possible for them to win the 66 votes needs to pass a Constitutional amendment. And no matter how scared they are, I just don’t see any Democrats voting for this. It would mean the end of their tax and spend racket, and would force them to deal with the growing fiscal crises of Medicare and Social Security.
Leave a comment Print This Post
Cliff Kincaid writes at AIM that the conservative movement has been “infiltrated” by gays and libertarians. Oh my!
It is with sad irony that such a piece was published by an organization, which I am normally a fan of, called Accuracy in Media, as it is riddled with errors and distortions.
Let’s start with his description of the events at CPAC:
California Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chairman Ryan Sorba generated a media controversy when he was shown at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) denouncing the organizers for inviting a homosexual Republican group, GOProud, into the event as an official sponsor. In “controversial” remarks, Sorba said homosexuality was unnatural and that he welcomed more debate and discussion about the subject from his political adversaries.
But what many people don’t realize is that Sorba’s “outburst” was provoked by a speaker who preceded him, Alexander McCobin of Students For Liberty (SFL). McCobin went out of his way to use valuable time from the podium to thank the American Conservative Union, the main CPAC organizer, for making the controversial decision to approve GOProud’s participation.
There are two things we are apparently supposed to get from this. 1) Sorba was somehow provoked into being rude and obnoxious, and 2) there’s something wrong with thanking CPAC for standing up to their own stated principles of liberty. In fact, the “valuable time” McCobin used was part of his own two-minutes, so that point just seems gratuitous. As for being provoked, I hardly see what from McCobin’s speech justified Sorba booing into another microphone and making negative gestures while McCobin was speaking.
The idea that someone who behaves like that is in any way welcoming “more debate and discussion” is difficult to swallow. No one provoked him into being so rude. Maybe he’s born that way.
Kincaid then sympathetically recounts Sorba’s complaints that apparently no one at CPAC but him is actually conservative. Finally he comes to SFL:
Proving the point, McCobin’s SFL is based at the libertarian Cato Institute, which has a conservative view on federal spending issues but promotes a U.S. military withdrawal from much of the world and very liberal social views, such as legalization of marijuana and other drugs.
Ryan Sorba being an obnoxious jerk
Yes, McCobin’s group is libertarian, but Kincaid betrays his own problems with conservatism here. How is it “very liberal” to see that drug prohibition is a big government position? Does CPAC not claim to stand for limited government? Or is that only limited government except when it comes to outlawing activities that Cliff Kincaid does not like?
It is entirely within keeping with conservative principles to have a problem with the drug war. This is a policy position, not a social position. You can be against the drug war and against drug use at the same time. What would be “very liberal” would be to say that frequent drug use is a socially acceptable, or even commendable, behavior. I don’t recall that being on SFL’s mission statement. Kincaid seems incapable of wrapping his mind around the obvious difference between social pressure and government force, a fault too many of his “traditional conservatives” share.
For instance, another one of those unconservative cosponsors, by Kincaid’s standards, was the Poker Players Alliance. Back at CPAC for the second year in a row, and again extremely popular among the younger crowd, PPA is having to fight the real infiltrators in the conservative midst who insist on using big government to tell people how to use their own money for entertainment. Do the “traditional conservatives” that Kincaid and Sorba lionize see no contradiction in complaining about government control of the economy, while at the same time telling people they can’t play poker? Before casting stones of conservative purity, perhaps Kincaid should examine the application of his own principles.
Finally, Kincaid turns his attention to GOProud, who he insists is not really conservative.
In fact, GOProud’s commitment to constitutionally protected homosexual sodomy (i.e., anal intercourse) is not a position that appears on the agenda of any conservative groups. Hence, using the term “gay conservative” to describe these people is either a deliberate deception or an oxymoron that doesn’t stand up under scrutiny.
This is just stupid. Sorry, I can think of few other words to describe it, and none of them appropriate for this blog. Let me get this straight: because conservative groups do not say that the constitution protects “homosexual sodomy,” GOProud is not conservative?
First of all, this is a non-sequitur. GOProud is conservative because it stands for conservative principles.
More importantly, it’s just factually incorrect. All conservative organizations say they are committed to “constitutionally protected homosexual sodomy” (although they apparently don’t all actually believe it) when they proclaim to hold principles like “personal liberty” and “individual responsibility.” As in, the individual has the liberty and responsibility to decide on their own what private acts they engage in, regardless of whether or not Cliff Kincaid and “traditional conservatives” think they are harming themselves.
But it gets better:
GOProud, the organization at the center of the storm, claims to be “conservative” but supports the Obama policy of putting active and open homosexuals in the military, supports homosexual marriage, and even advocates a foreign policy of promoting acceptance of sodomy abroad. The latter is referred to as “Standing strong against radical regimes who seek to criminalize gays and lesbians.”
These “radical regimes,” such as the Christian-dominated government in Uganda, are trying to prevent the spread of AIDS and protect traditional moral values by toughening laws against homosexuality.
Is this the same “Christian-dominated” government of Uganda that wants to put gay people to death for engaging in homosexual acts? I believe it is. How unconservative of GOProud to stand up to such brutal repression! Kincaid then hyperventilates that morally opposing such tyrannical practices while supporting a move to allow openly gay soldiers to serve in the military will lead to “gay soldiers being deployed to overthrow “homophobic” regimes.” And they say gays are dramatic!
There was more nonsense in his piece, such as his confused understanding of the Cato Institute (which he weirdly tried to depict as a Soros organ), but I think I’ve refuted enough for the time being.
I try to avoid gratuitous insults here (regular readers probably know I am sometimes unsuccessful), but there is really no other conclusion: Cliff Kincaid is an idiot. If we should be disturbed by any infiltration of conservatism, it’s that of the small-minded ideology of fools like this.
Leave a comment Print This Post
A lot of phrases are being thrown about in the midst of the current health care debate. Perhaps the most common is the sentiment that we need to control the costs of health care.
Both right and left agree that it is desirable to have health care cost less. But controlling costs? That implies centralized authority, that someone will wrangle greedy health providers and force them to lower costs. It’s a decidedly statist vision. Yet even those offering free market solutions often adopt such language. This is a mistake. While it might seem acceptable in the proper context to say that “competition would control costs,” it subtly cedes moral ground to the statists.
Such totalitarian language is common in America. It’s routinely asserted that our presidents are elected to rule the country or manage the economy. Both of these assertions are absurd, or ought to be, if taken literally.
There are probably many other great examples. What other totalitarian terms or phrases have infiltrated and proliferated throughout our vernacular?
Leave a comment Print This Post
Who are the most conservative and liberal members in Congress? Every year National Journal scores the votes of all members to answer that question. For 2009:
The 10 Most Liberal Senators
- Sherrod Brown (tied 1st)
- Roland Burris (tied 1st)
- Ben Cardin (tied 1st)
- Jack Reed (tied 1st)
- Sheldon Whitehouse (tied 1st)
- John Kerry
- Frank Lautenberg
- Barbara Mikulski
- Chris Dodd
- Dick Durbin
The 10 Most Conservative Senators
- James Inhofe
- Jim DeMint
- Jim Bunning
- Tom Coburn
- James Risch
- John Thune
- John Ensign
- Mitch McConnell
- Richard Burr
- Jeff Sessions
Print This Post
Rumors of a possible Crist defection to run as an independent began a few days ago. Now, sources indicate it may be a done deal.
Two highly placed and independent sources, speaking strictly on background, tell me that Gov. Charlie Crist is preparing to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent in the race for the U.S. Senate…
Another well-placed source tells me the reason several Crist campaign staffers left recently is because, being committed Republicans, they refused to take part in an independent Senate run by Crist. That’s not confirmed by an independent second source, but it does ring true.
Now, reports from anonymous sources are sometimes wrong, so I have stopped short of reporting a Crist independent run as a verifiable fact, even though I believe my sources are accurate.
Electorally he probably does have a slightly better shot in a three-way race than against Rubio in the primary, where polls show him currently getting creamed and losing more ground everyday. But he won’t get much Republican support, and likely will pull more Democratic voters. In other words, Rubio still wins.
My first thought upon hearing that he might do this was similar to that of Erick Erickson at RedState. The party establishment will try to cover their rear-ends by blaming this on conservatives, instead of putting blame where it belongs: on supporting and promoting the kind of opportunist who so can’t stand to lose a primary that he’d pack it up and leave at the first sign that he might have miscalculated.
Ultimately this confirms what conservatives have been saying about Crist. He is an opportunist snake that only came into office on Jeb Bush’s coattails, but has no real draw of his own. We don’t want him as our Florida senator under any label, so good riddance.
Leave a comment Print This Post
To close out my coverage of CPAC 2010, I’ll finally give you my thoughts on Glenn Beck’s keynote address.
The speech was quite enjoyable. Beck takes a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, for his seemingly erratic behavior. But it only serves to enhance his sincerity, which really comes across. It is clear that he believes passionately in what he is saying. He’s certainly not doing it just to win votes, since he isn’t running for anything. Neither does one get the impression that he is doing it to sell books and boost his ratings. He just believes it.
I was very happy to see him target Progressivism as the source of America’s ills. The Progressive Era, which continues to influence left-wing thought today, is too little understood. What turn of the century Progressives promoted was essentially fascism. They cheered European fascists like Hitler and Mussolini, only turning on the former when he betrayed their other buddies in the USSR. Like other fascist movements, they believed in the perfectibility of man through social policy, which lead to disasters like Prohibition. The redistributive income tax was a Progressive reform brought about under Wilson. The Progressive Era also essentially rewrote our Constitution.
Photo by The Patriot Room
With this understanding, I was simply delighted to see such an intellectual challenge to the source of today’s problems from a speaker like Beck. It would have been so easy for him to just claim that it’s all Barack Obama, but he didn’t do that. Kudos to him.
Since the speech he has taken criticism from some, such as Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh, for giving Republicans little, if any, more credit than Democrats. While I agree with Rush on the point that it’s tiring to hear people say “there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats,” I didn’t quite get that from Beck’s speech. Nor do I think the speech itself promoted a third party just because it criticized Republicans. Criticizing Republicans from the right is what will ultimately keep them in line!
So yes, he criticized Republicans. Yes, he doesn’t think they are sufficiently apologetic for their past mistakes. That’s a valid criticism. As John Hawkins pointed out in reply to Bennett, Republicans like Mike Pence and Jim DeMint who do get it are the exception that prove the rule. They got it before when the rest of the party was spending big, so it’s not enough just for them to get it now. If anything is going to be different should Republicans retake Congress, the party establishment needs to get it, too.
I also agree with RS McCain that some of the criticisms of Beck stink of professional jealousy. How dare this upstart get a keynote, when so many other hard working conservatives have been paying their dues for much longer? Of course, these same conservatives balked at such logic when it promoted John McCain as the GOP nominee. I don’t ultimately know if that’s the motivation behind some of these criticisms, but it would explain the odd tirades of Mark Levin.
At the end of the day, I doubt much of the criticism matters. Beck was very well received by those who were there, and reached out to the Tea Parties and showed them that their voice is being heard in the broader conservative movement. That’s a good thing. That isn’t promoting a third party. In fact, it makes one less likely. Now let us all stop bickering and return to our united opposition to Obama’s radical agenda.
1 comment Print This Post
Everyone is talking about Ron Paul’s win in the CPAC straw poll. Much of this talk is wrong.
From the left, we have Tom Schaller of FiveThirtyEight.com, who thinks that this is proof that both the conservative movement and the Tea Parties are driven by “ginned up former Ron Paul supporters.” He then bemoans the fact that the “kooky, historically revisionist, apocalyptic ideas of Glenn Beck and Ron Paul” are treated with the same seriousness as those of our Democratic Overloads. You know, the really deep thinkers like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank and John Holdren.
On the right we have Mike Huckabee’s silly tantrum claiming that “CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years.” And by “less Republican,” he means less prone to the nanny paternalism sold by populist snake oil salesmen like Mike Huckabee.
Now let me tell you what it actually means.
Only a quarter of attendees bothered to fill out the poll. It’s 3 years out from the election. No one has any clear idea who is even running, as most of the possible candidates are still playing coy. But guess who always runs? That’s right, Ron Paul. And I shouldn’t have to explain to someone from FiveThirtyEight what a selection bias is, right?
What the straw poll really tells us is as simple as it is obvious. Ron Paul continues to have enthusiastic supporters among young college students, who made up around half of the entire conference attendance. What it doesn’t tell us is anything significant about the legitimacy of the conservative movement, or the Tea Parties, or whether conservative ideas should be dismissed across the board by some twisted logic of guilt by association.
Here is my warning to the right: Do not dismiss the results completely. What the Republican Party in particular ought to take away is that young people are more interested in fiscal conservatism than the social populism desired by the likes of Mike Huckabee.
The next generation, having witnessed the failures of big government conservatism, or compassionate conservativism or whatever you want to call it, know that the most important challenge we face is the necessity of reversing the growth of government. Not slowing it. Not stopping it. Reversing it.
While I have never been a Paulite, and won’t ever support him in a primary in part because I refuse to give him a pass on playing footsie with the Truthers, the need to roll back the Leviathan is the message both he and Beck delivered, and explains why the two were so well received.
Leave a comment Print This Post
George Will really speaks to the policy wonk in me.
Leave a comment Print This Post
Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.
I am a libertarian-conservative blogger living in the DC area. I have a Master's degree in Political Science, but please don't hold that against me.
